ByrdLock – How To Stop The Health Care Bill And Waterloo Barack Obama

If you want to stop the Obama scam called “health care reform”, which is nothing but an IRS enforced massive transfer of wealth to the Big Pharma and Big Insurance companies, we have one word for you: ByrdLock.

The Byrd Rule with its Byrd Baths and associated roadblocks to fiscal scams has effectively stopped Dimocrats from using the short circuit of “reconciliation rules” (Obama’s Bluff) to pass the Obamination called “health care reform”. We know this Obamination is yet another scam by the Chicago flim-flam man.

What is the “ByrdLock”? Back in January 1995 when Newt Gingrich and the Republicans wanted to ram through the “Contract For America” Senator Robert Byrd mobilized. Byrd used all his arcane knowledge of the Senate Rules to slow down the Republican train. ByrdLock can be used now to block the Obama health scam.

Republican websites should ask their congressional leaders why ByrdLock is not being used to block Obama and the Big Insurance Dimocrats. We’ll post a phone number below to call and ask why ByrdLock is not out of the Senate Rules arsenal and in use to block the scam.

Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the Democrats’ parliamentary ace and self-appointed guardian of the Senate’s deliberative role, launched an all-out effort to slow down what he called the Republican “steamroller.” Byrd’s filibuster-like maneuvers reduced to a snail’s pace the Senate’s debate of a bill that would restrict the ability of Congress to impose unfunded regulatory mandates on the states. His exploitation of an arcane rule regarding committee meeting times also forced the Judiciary Committee to halt-if for only one day-its consideration of a balanced-budget amendment. Majority leader Bob Dole was sufficiently ruffled to grumble about the Senate’s “Byrdlock.”

Obama and the Dimocrats who support the health scam, a dwindling group, want to get rid of the health scam debate in order to rescue themselves with the next phase of the Obama flim-flam: endless words, words, words, about job creation. There won’t be job creation but Obama wants to talk talk talk about jobs to bamboozle Americans. ByrdLock will ensure that the health scam debate will go on and on and on until it dies or Obama and the Dimocrats have less supporters than Bush did at the end of his term.

Over in the House, Republicans are intent on defying the traditional, ever-so-stately pace of the legislative process and pushing through their “Contract With America.” But between the Republicans and their dream of a 100-day revolution stands the Senate.

More specifically, Senate Democrats. And most specifically of all, Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia.

Mr. Byrd, who has spent 36 of his 77 years in the Senate, reveres the deliberate gait of the legislative process. He boasts on the Senate floor of never having read the Contract With America, the campaign manifesto written by Speaker Newt Gingrich and other House Republicans, and which drives much of political Washington these days. He says he is not about to see his beloved institution fall victim to the “steamroller” of an upstart House, and rush through sweeping legislation without adequate debate and deliberation.

Since Mr. Byrd has served as majority leader, minority leader and President pro tem of the Senate, not to mention whip and committee chairman, he is steeped in the deep magic of the Senate’s rules. Even in the urgent Age of Newt, he knows how to slow things down.

“We should not be cowed like whipped dogs,” he said this afternoon in an interview that he occasionally interrupted to give arcane instructions to his staff on the filing of first- and second-degree amendments, marshaling his forces for the latest skirmish on the Senate floor. “We should be senators.”

This week, Mr. Byrd was helping to lead the slowdown on a Republican bill to make it more difficult for Congress to pass “unfunded mandates” — laws and regulations that impose new costs on state and local governments without their consent. Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, the majority leader, has scheduled a vote for Thursday to try to shut off debate, complaining that the Senate was in the grip of “Byrdlock.“

The amendment, of course, is a top priority for the Republicans, and some Democrats as well; it is anathema to Senator Byrd, who describes it as a gimmick being rammed through without giving the public “any idea of how we are going to enact over one trillion dollars of spending cuts and tax increases over the next seven years.”

Mr. Byrd also argues that this amendment and the line item veto, which would allow the President to eliminate specific items from the budget, represent a fundamental shifting of power from the legislative to the executive and judicial branches of the Government.

Asked this afternoon how hard he will oppose the balanced budget amendment, the Senator replied in the gentle cadence of the West Virginia coal fields: “To me there is no 50 percent of the way, or 75 percent. It’s 100 percent with me. I have reasons based on weeks, months, years of study.”

Few relish the idea of matching wits and rules with Mr. Byrd. Senator Dirk Kempthorne, the 43-year-old Idaho Republican who is managing the unfunded mandate bill on the floor, acknowledged that he was on a “steep learning curve” but added, “I think I’ll learn by watching him maneuver.”

Learn from Byrd. Block the new steamroller.

Bring back BYRDLOCK:

There are an array of rules that an individual senator can invoke to work his will, and Mr. Byrd is said to know more of them than almost anyone. This week, for example, he relied on a little used rule that said committees could meet freely only until the third hour of the Senate’s legislative day, after which a senator could stop them by objecting.

He is also noted for his ability to structure amendments, which was at the heart of the battle over the Clinton Administration’s economic stimulus package. In that case, Mr. Byrd’s tactics helped stiffen opposition that ultimately scuttled the bill.

Mr. Dole vowed today to “try to keep up with Newt and the House Republicans,” although asserting, “Senator Byrd feels so strongly about the balanced budget amendment that he’ll do anything he can to prevent that coming to the floor.”

Mr. Byrd, for his part, seemed unperturbed by the coming struggle. “Time is in the interest of good legislation,” he said, coolly.

Republican Senator Judd Gregg (the one Obama wanted in his cabinet) recently wrote what Dimocrats term “an obstruction manual”. The “manual” does not address ByrdLock.

Sen. Judd Gregg, (R-NH) has penned the equivalent of an obstruction manual — a how-to for holding up health care reform — and has distributed the document to his Republican colleagues.

Insisting that it is “critical that Republican senators have a solid understanding of the minority’s rights in the Senate,” Gregg makes note of all the procedural tools the GOP can use before measures are considered, when they come to the floor and even after passage.

He highlights the use of hard quorum calls for any motion to proceed, as opposed to a far quicker unanimous consent provision. He reminds his colleagues that, absent unanimous consent, they can force the Majority Leader to read any “full-text substitute amendment.” And when it comes to offering amendments to the health care bill, the New Hampshire Republican argues that it is the personification of “full, complete, and informed debate,” to “offer an unlimited number of amendments — germane or non-germane — on any subject.”

The details of Gregg’s outline are a clear reflection of the extent to which Republicans are turning to the Byzantine processes of the Senate chamber as a means of holding up reform. And doing so with eagerness. Take for instance, the section on offering a “point of order.”

“A Senator may make a point of order at any point he or she believes that a Senate procedure is being violated, with or without cause,” he writes. “After the presiding officer rules, any Senator who disagrees with such ruling may appeal the ruling of the chair–that appeal is fully debatable. Some points of order, such as those raised on Constitutional grounds, are not ruled on by the presiding officer and the question is put to the Senate, then the point of order itself is fully debatable. The Senate may dispose of a point of order or an appeal by tabling it; however, delay is created by the two roll call votes in connection with each tabling motion (motion to table and motion to reconsider that vote).”

Use ByrdLock Senator Gregg.

Below is Senator Gregg’s full letter that does not include Byrdlock as a prime option. Notice the phone number included by Judd Gregg. “I hope you find the attached information helpful. If you have any questions, please contact my communications office at 202-224-6011.” Maybe the Gregg communications office has an answer why ByrdLock is not in use.

As we wrote, Obama and the Dimocrats (now opposed even by Howie Dean and many former Hopium guzzlers) want to get off the health topic because it is killing them with the American voting public. The polls are going down and so are the Dimocrats who backstabbed Hillary for the Chicago flim-flam stooge of Big Media.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s plan to pass the Senate health care reform bill by Christmas looked increasingly in doubt Wednesday, as Republicans launched an offensive to stall the legislation and Democrats had yet to strike a 60-vote compromise.

Senators privately considered one scenario Wednesday that would have them casting a final vote at 7 p.m. Christmas Eve.

Surprising Democrats, Republicans brought the debate to a standstill and forced the Senate clerk to read a 767-page amendment on creating a government-financed health care system. Democrats pulled the measure as the reading entered its third hour, but the move was the start of the GOP’s attempts to use every procedural tool necessary to delay the bill.

Away from the floor, Reid (D-Nev.) continued wrangling with the Congressional Budget Office over a cost estimate, which Democrats had initially hoped to receive by Monday.

Without the analysis, Reid has been unable to lock down votes for the bill. And Democrats on both ends of the political spectrum remained uncommitted, saying they had problems that needed to be addressed.

Stop all committee meetings. Stop all proceedings and focus the nation’s attention on the health care scam. Shut down the Senate.

And let’s not forget: there is no written legislation that anyone but Harry Reid has yet seen.

Taken together, the obstacles created rising concerns among Democrats that their self-imposed Christmas deadline was slipping out of reach.

“They still have a plan for how to do that,” Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said. “Whether that is implementable, I am not certain.”

The Christmas deadline is a political target. Democrats want to finish the bill so they have a few weeks to move it through a House-Senate conference committee and deliver it to the president by the State of the Union address in late January or early February. After months of health care dominating their domestic agenda, Democrats are eager to shift to other issues early next year — mainly a focus on creating jobs.

But as Wednesday’s showdown on the floor revealed, Republicans do not plan to acquiesce. They want the debate to spill past Christmas, hoping the longer the bill hangs out there, the less likely it is to pass.

“We want to do what we can to defeat the bill,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, a member of the Senate Republican leadership. “We are going to do everything we can in terms of the rights we have to stop the bill from passing.”

Why not use ByrdLock Senator Thune? Why not use ByrdLock Senator Coburn?

Reid is operating under a tight timeline.

Under the rosiest scenario, he needs to begin taking the procedural steps by this weekend to end the debate — and it would still take until Dec. 23 or Dec. 24 until the bill reaches final passage. Democratic senators have received assignments to preside over the Senate floor through Christmas Eve. This scenario depends on whether Reid receives the CBO cost analysis within the next day, which is not guaranteed.

Sanders, a liberal holdout, was seeking concessions on the other end of the political spectrum. He said he remains in negotiations with the White House and the Senate leadership about the bill.

“I have real concerns with this bill as it stands right now,” Sanders said. “So, I’m not on board yet. At this moment, I am an undecided. I would like to support it, but I’m not there yet.”

Harboring complaints similar to those of Sanders, top labor leaders met Wednesday to weigh action on the bill. But most insiders say they’ll most likely find a way of expressing their distress that comes short of actually opposing the legislation.

Labor unions are now considering opposing the Obamination health scam:

The AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union gathered to discuss the bill, but the absence of final legislative language made it difficult to chart a course forward, representatives said.

“Labor is looking to make the bill better,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said after the meeting.

The AFL-CIO has aired television ads supporting the bill but attacking a provision that would raise taxes on expensive health care plans like those held by many union members. Some labor leaders have hinted at flat opposition to the bill emerging from the Senate. In September, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka pledged to work against any bill that lacked a public insurance option and taxed health care benefits.

Another labor official warned that while labor leaders will very likely grudgingly support the legislation, some may be bitter enough to sit out the midterm elections, dealing a blow to Democrats.

Time is on our side. Let’s fight for time. Stop all Senate business. Use every tool available with imagination and determination.

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108 thoughts on “ByrdLock – How To Stop The Health Care Bill And Waterloo Barack Obama”

We have many “shy” readers who do not post comments. Some are Republicans. It would be helpful if Republican websites and conservative websites ask Republican congressional leaders to fight – and use ByrdLock. Maybe some will even call Judd Gregg’s office and say “Resist!”

Admin, I’ll call my senators in the a.m. This is not a partisan issue for me – this is just a bad, bad, horrid bill that needs to be killed. I’ll call Judd Gregg.

I’l alert the many Republican friends and family I have to call as well, and rather than just insisting that their senators vote “nay”, to demand they slow it down and obstruct it by any means possible, any rule they can use.

I well remember how effectively the senate thwarted Newt’s legislation. And stubbornly ignored the cries of “obstructionist”! The senate needs to do that again.

The Republicans need to stop being afraid of being called the “party of No”. That’s just a bullying tactic. When the Dims are trying to do something that would be horrendous for the country, it is entirely appropriate to stand up and say NO. When some talking head tries to bait them about being “obstructive”, simply say, “The Democrats have made it clear that they do not want our input, and want to unilaterally force something on the country that the American people DO NOT WANT. What else should I say to that but no?

Most of the country is saying not just no, but HELL no. The Repubs need to get on the ball here and grow a spine. No need to whine and explain and be defensive, just DO it! The people will love it, even if the media bobbleheads clutch their pearls and tsk tsk.

Admin, you are also correct that it has finally dawned on Obama and Rahm and Axelrod that this HCR is becoming a swamp for Obama, and they want it done and put to bed no matter what the bill is. They don’t even care anymore, they just want to sign it and declare victory. The boob is alarmed that he is out of step with the worries of the People re: the jobs, the economy, and he wishes to move on to bamboozle and charm in other areas besides healthcare. (The boob is no Hillary Clinton, and cannot concentrate or multi-task or charm on several fronts at once.)

The HCR is the monkey around his neck, and he wants that monkey OFF, as fast as possible. Make that monkey stick like glue. Don’t let him cast it off easily. Even if he gets a bill in the end, drag the process out as long as possible, because every day that it stays front and center, the parade of Dimocratic boobs on the national stage looks more feckless and wimpy and backstabbing. The strain shows as Shumer snaps at flight attendants, and Franken gets cute with Liebrmann. Tie healthcare to them like an slow anchor.

Rushing to lock the nation into expensive health care and climate change commitments, Democrats are in an understandable frenzy because public enthusiasm for both crusades has been inversely proportional to the time the public has had to think about them. And the president pushing this agenda has, with his incontinent hunger for attention, seen his job approval vary inversely with his ubiquity. Consider his busy December — so far.

His Dec. 1 Afghanistan speech to the nation was followed on Dec. 3 by his televised “jobs summit.” His Dec. 8 televised economics speech at the Brookings Institution was followed on Dec. 10 by his televised Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, which was remarkable for 38 uses of the pronoun “I.”

And for disavowing a competence no one suspected him of. (“I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war.” Note the superfluous adjective.) And for an unnecessary notification. (“Evil does exist in the world.”) And for delayed utopianism. (“We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.” But in someone’s.) And for solemnly announcing something undisputed. (There can be a just war.) And for intellectual applesauce that should get speechwriters fired and editors hired. (“We do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected.” If the human “condition” can attain perfection anyway, human nature cannot be significantly imperfect.)

Then on Dec. 13, he was on “60 Minutes” praising himself with another denigration of his predecessor, aka “the last eight years.” (Blighted by “a triumphant sense about war.”) When Attorney General Eric Holder announced that five accused terrorists would be tried in federal courts, he said: “After eight years of delay. …” When the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force made the controversial recommendation that women should get fewer mammograms, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said: “This panel was appointed by the prior administration, by former President George Bush.” In congressional testimony, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner almost deviated from the script. He said the Obama administration began after “almost a decade” — slight pause — “certainly eight years of basic neglect.”

Abroad, the fruits of the president’s policy of “engagement” have been meager: Witness Iran continuing its nuclear program and China being difficult about carbon emissions. Here is a history lesson for an administration which, considering itself the culmination of history, is interested only in the last eight years of it:

At the Vienna summit in June 1961, President John Kennedy, fresh from his Bay of Pigs fiasco, was unnerved by the brutal disdain of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who considered Kennedy callow. Britain’s Prime Minister Harold Macmillan astutely noted Kennedy had “met a man who was impervious to his charm.”

A person can only be a novelty once, and only briefly, and charm, like any commodity, when used uneconomically becomes a wasting asset. All this is pertinent to the Senate health care debate, now coming to a curious climax amid another glut of careless grandiosity.

[snip]

A CNN poll shows 36 percent of the public in favor of what the Democratic Senate is trying to do to health care, 61 percent opposed. It is clear what the public wants Congress to do: Take a mulligan and start over.

So Republicans can win in 2009 by stopping the bill, or in 2010 by saying: Unpopular health legislation passed because of a 60-40 party-line decision to bring it to a Senate vote. Therefore each incumbent Democrat is responsible for everything in the law.

By withholding billions in stimulus money for next few yrs, Obama, imo, will use it to create a temporary upswing in the economy, unemployment eventually will go back down under 10% as the 2010 mid terms approach. I think if he can claim to have “fixed” the economy, create some perceived job growth, he can position himself for the 21012 election with the scheduled troops being reduced by July 2011. While we all agree he is incompetent to be President, his election modus operandi , with Plouffe, Axelrod and Emanuel (with Soros calling the shots) can never be underestimated. I hate being so pessimistic, but I never would have believed he could have defeated the Clinton machine . Thus, until I see a significant republican moderate who can make a race of it, I am not optimistic about 2012.

A Kos Clinton siad this at whitehouse.gov. I’m too tired to check it out.
At last, we are close to making real health insurance reform a reality. We face one critical, final choice, between action and inaction. We know where the path of inaction leads to: more uninsured Americans, more families struggling to keep up with skyrocketing premiums, higher federal budget deficits, and health costs so much higher than any other country’s they will cripple us economically. Our only responsible choice is the path of action.

Does this bill read exactly how I would write it? No. Does it contain everything everyone wants? Of course not. But America can’t afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And this is a good bill: it increases the security of those who already have insurance and gives every American access to affordable coverage, and contains comprehensive efforts to control costs and improve quality, with more information on best practices, and comparative costs and results. The bill will shift the power away from the insurance companies and into the hands of consumers.

Take it from someone who knows: these chances don’t come around every day. Allowing this effort to fall short now would be a colossal blunder — both politically for our party and, far more important, for the physical, fiscal, and economic health of our country.”

New York, NY – “America stands at a historic crossroads. At last, we are close to making real health insurance reform a reality. We face one critical, final choice, between action and inaction. We know where the path of inaction leads to: more uninsured Americans, more families struggling to keep up with skyrocketing premiums, higher federal budget deficits, and health costs so much higher than any other country’s they will cripple us economically.

Our only responsible choice is the path of action. Does this bill read exactly how I would write it? No. Does it contain everything everyone wants? Of course not. But America can’t afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

And this is a good bill: it increases the security of those who already have insurance and gives every American access to affordable coverage; and contains comprehensive efforts to control costs and improve quality, with more information on best practices, and comparative costs and results. The bill will shift the power away from the insurance companies and into the hands of consumers.

Take it from someone who knows: these chances don’t come around every day. Allowing this effort to fall short now would be a colossal blunder — both politically for our party and, far more important, for the physical, fiscal, and economic health of our country.”

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) backed out of an event with other organizations promoting the Senate healthcare reform bill Wednesday over concerns about changes made to the legislation to accommodate centrist Democrats.

The SEIU had planned to participate in a Capitol Hill press conference along with the AARP, the liberal advocacy group Families USA, Consumers Union and the American Cancer Society Action Network. As recently as Tuesday morning, the organizations distributed an advisory to the news media that included the SEIU.

But the move by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to excise provisions of the healthcare reform bill to create a government-run public option health insurance program and to allow people between 55 and 64 years old to buy into Medicare gave the labor union pause, spokeswoman Lori Lodes said.

“That decision has to be made by our leaders and our members,” Lodes said. The event with the AARP and the other groups was scheduled before Reid made changes to the bill.

The SEIU executive board will hold what Lodes described as an “emergency” meeting Wednesday night to decide how to move forward. “Right now, they don’t have the information they need to make this decision,” said Lodes, who added that the SEIU informed the other organizations on Tuesday they would not be joining the press conference.

The board meeting likely will not produce a final determination by the union about whether to support advancing the Senate healthcare bill, which not only lacks a public option and the Medicare buy-in but also would levy an excise tax on so-called Cadillac health insurance plans that some union members have, Lodes said.

“We will not have an absolute decision coming,” largely because Reid has not released the final language of the healthcare bill, she said.

With the clock ticking down on health care reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has until Saturday to strike a 60-vote compromise if Democrats hope to meet a Christmas Eve deadline – but the obstacles kept piling up Thursday.

Reid still had no legislative text and no cost analysis to release. One of the final moderate holdouts, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), rejected compromise language on abortion funding and said he’s doubtful a bill can pass by Christmas. Two powerful unions blasted the bill. House Democrats threatened to undo the Senate bill during a conference committee. And a Democratic war over the bill raged on the Internet and cable news.

The White House sunk deeper into the fight within its own party, working throughout the day to discredit the claims of former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean that the Senate bill is so weak it should be scrapped.

The net effect was the loss of any sense of inevitability surrounding the passage of health care legislation by the end of the year as Reid struggled to keep it on track.

“If we are going to get a bill out of the Senate, which will be very close to getting a bill enacted, we have to do it in 2009,” said Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), who is working on the abortion compromise with Nelson. “Some might not think so, but what I would worry about is losing momentum.”

“We’re down to 48 to 72 hours,” he said at 2 p.m. Thursday.

Reid needs a commitment – privately or publicly – from Nelson and other undecided senators by Saturday night, which is the drop-dead time at which the majority leader must begin the procedural steps necessary to finish the bill by Christmas Eve. The current timeline would have the Senate taking a series of votes: at 1 a.m. Monday, 7 a.m. Tuesday, 1 p.m. Wednesday and 7 p.m. Christmas Eve.

If the Senate fails to break a Republican filibuster early Friday morning on a Department of Defense appropriations bill, the timeline will be set back by a day, potentially pushing the vote to Christmas Day.

The foot soldiers of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, organized to go into action when key elements of his agenda are at stake, aren’t universally enthusiastic about fighting for the health care compromise now before the Senate.

On Wednesday morning, Organizing for America, as Obama’s reconstituted campaign organization is now known, emailed its list of 13 million Obama supporters asking them to “call your senators now and help us ‘ring in reform.’”

The campaign yielded 150,000 calls – less than half the number of a similar effort in October – and it prompted a backlash among online and local activists who had logged countless volunteer supporting Obama’s campaign and legislative agenda, but who felt betrayed by recent Democratic concessions in the healthcare reform fight.

To be sure, the October effort targeted members of the House and Senate, while Wednesday’s calls only targeted senators. Keeping any political organization together after the enthusiasm of a campaign is over is difficult, and it’s hard to gauge how widespread the unhappiness is.

But there’s plenty of unhappiness. One leading OFA volunteer in Florida blasted an email to a statewide listserv urging activists to “just say no” to the phone-banking effort – uncorking a torrent of frustration from Florida Democrats – while some OFA subscribers replied directly to the call-to-action email with angry messages and others asked to be removed from the list entirely.

In a stunning reversal of fortune for President Barack Obama, top progressives are attacking the health-reform plan moving through the Senate as “hollow,” “unsupportable” and a sellout to corporate interests.

Republicans, after plotting for months to sink the signature legislation of Obama’s first year, suddenly think that Democrats might wind up doing it for them.

Most dangerously for White House chances of assembling 60 Senate votes, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean launched a third day of attacks on the emerging bill, arguing in a Washington Post op-ed that it meets none of his benchmarks for “real reform.”

“[A]s it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America,” Dean wrote, then took to the airwaves to amplify his case.

Ed Schultz, an influential liberal radio host, declared on his “Ed Show” on MSNBC: “The base is restless. They are wandering in the wilderness, Mr. President. … They want to know, where are you? … Right now, Mr. President, your base thinks you’re nothing but a sellout — a corporate sellout, out that. … The only people who like this current bill right now, Mr. President, is the insurance industry — they get a bunch of new customers.”

Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos, wrote on his Twitter feed: “Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate.” And “Kos” blogged: “You pass a s——-y program now that further bankrupts our nation, and we won’t be talking about ‘fixing’ it in a few years, but whether it should even exist.”

“Sure they couldn’t openly oppose the plan, but Bill could have stayed home instead of showing up to push it, twice.”

——————–

I’m sure that would have gone over like a lead balloon. I can hear it now… “Bill Clinton’s absence and silence is deafening! What does that say about his party loyalty? What does it say about Hillary’s?”

I still say that both of them are between a rock and a hard place and are just biding their time.

I can hear it now… “Bill Clinton’s absence and silence is deafening! What does that say about his party loyalty? What does it say about Hillary’s?”

I still say that both of them are between a rock and a hard place and are just biding their time.

=======================

Well, there are a lot of positions in between. Between pushing it in Congress and deafining silence, I mean. The Clintons have to say something nice about it, but it seems to me like visiting Congress twice and saying what he has said, is a little beyond the call of mere lip service.

When things completely crumble for Obama and the dims, you know they will blame Hillary and Bill so I found this article over at Cannonfire and I thought it would be nice as it has the history to prove it wasn’t Bill’s fault.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Rewriting history: They’re at it again!All over the blogosphere, commenters suffer from unvented spleens. The PUMA contingent has been proven utterly right about Obama, and now all the (former?) Obots don’t know how to react. Those arrogant bot bastards would rather bite off their own nipples than say “I got it wrong and I’m sorry.”

(Incidentally, I am not a PUMA, being too ornery to accept any categorization not of my own devising. I am, and have been since early 2008, an anti-Obama Democrat. Keep it at that, and make no further presumptions.)

Naturally, the demoralized bots have resorted to the one activity that gives them solace: Blaming Bill Clinton for everything that has ever gone wrong in the world, up to and including the film version of The Spirit.

That’s why the blogosphere brims with snarling references to Bill Clinton’s alleged gutting of Glass-Steagall, the banking reform act put through in the days of Hoover and FDR. Glass-Steagal kept banks out of the insurance and stock brokerage game; if the law had remained on the books, wheeler-dealers could not have turned mortgages into a worldwide Ponzi scheme. The bots want you to believe that Barack Obama has been forced to clean up a mess made by Bill Clinton.

The “Blame Bill!” contingent never mentions that Obama has always ruled out renewing the Glass-Steagall provisions:
The argument is not to go back to the regulatory framework of the 1930’s because, as I said, the financial markets have changed substantially. The question is, how do we build new regulatory systems that are flexible, that reflect new realities, that aren’t going to put undue constraints on innovation in the financial markets…
He said those words in 2008. Since that time, Obama has done little or nothing to regulate the financial markets, aside from offering a grandly odious scheme to institutionalize government backing of the “too-big-to-fail” financial institutions. What Obama wants goes beyond moral hazard: It’s moral suicide.

In fact, the basic idea behind Glass-Steagall remains valid, and it was valid in 2008. Things have not changed that much since 1933. A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is still a sigh, and Wall Street is still filled with hyenas. That is why some in Congress are, thank God, talking about bringing us back to sanity on the Glass-Steagall front.

And as we scan that front, where is Barack Obama? Nowhere in sight. Steny Hoyer, not the White House, is fighting for the return of Glass-Steagall.

Oh, but it gets better: Former Citibank Chairman John S. Reed — the businessman who instigated the 1999 repeal effort — now wants Glass-Steagall back. But not Barack Obama. Wrap your brain cells around that flabbergaster, kitties: Obama stands to the right of the guy who ran Citibank.

Let’s return our attentions to the “Blame Bill” contingent.

What was Clinton’s real role in the repeal of Glass-Steagall back in 1999? I shall repeat some material published previously. These are facts which most “progressives” don’t want you to know, because most progressives suffer from an incurable case of Clinton Derangement Syndrome. To paraphrase a popular Upton Sinclairism, it is difficult to get a person to understand something if his CDS depends on his not understanding it.

As mentioned above, Glass-Steagall divided commercial banks from investment houses; it also created the FDIC (which, I am happy to report, is still there). Banks grew to dislike this “separation of powers.” Why? Because in boom times, people put their money in stocks, while in hard times, people put cash into savings accounts. Banks wanted to get in on both rackets.

In 1998, Travelers (a really big insurance and financial services company) announced a merger with Citibank (a really big bank headed by the aforementioned Mr. Reed). This was not legal. This merger violated Glass-Steagall. That’s why a lot of helpful people in Congress decided to change the law. You may decide for yourself whether campaign contributions affected that decision.

Thus was born the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which replaced Glass-Steagall. A growing number of economists believe that this Act helped to create the current subprime crisis, because it allowed bad loans to be packaged and sold in a global game of three-card monte.

Here’s the key fact that the the progs won’t tell you about: The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act passed by a veto-proof majority in a Republican-controlled Congress.

You can blame the Republicans, but not just the Republicans. There were also powerful Democrats, such as Dodd and Schumer, who wanted to kill Glass-Steagal.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act passed the House by a whopping 343-86.

Did Clinton try to fight the act? Yes. Every step of the way. Contemporary reports prove the point, however much the progs may attempt to rewrite history.

The opposition was simply too powerful. Clinton had no choice but to focus like the proverbial laser beam on a more restrictive goal: Maintaining the Community Reinvestment Act, which Gramm hoped to kill with the same piece of legislation. The CRA, as expanded by Clinton in 1994, helped minorities and the working poor get home loans and business loans.

The Republican majority (and quite a few Democratic sell-outs) forced Clinton to compromise. Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and even said a few laudatory words as he did so. That was the price of maintaining CRA. Blaming Bill Clinton for Gramm’s stupid law is like blaming Raoul Wallenberg for not defeating the Wehrmacht single-handed.

The CRA is a major reason why most black people used to love Bill Clinton.

That love affair lasted until the Obama cultists began crying “racist!” at any perceived enemy, especially if that enemy was named Clinton. The resultant frenzy made a lot of people forget all about those loans.

Shall I come out and say it? Yes, I think I shall: Any black homeowner or small business owner who got loans thanks to Clinton’s CRA, yet who later fell for the “Clintons-as-racists” canard, is an ungrateful asshole who deserves to be spat on.

Fortunately, many African Americans are finally starting to notice that Barack Obama has never helped any black person not named Obama.

Here’s the irony: The Republican version of the “blame Bill” strategy is really a “blame the blacks” strategy. Ever since the disaster of 2008, conservatives have argued that the CRA caused the economic meltdown. All such arguments are pure bullshit.

Nothing in the Community Reinvestment Act forced fly-by-night mortgage outfits to hand out houses to anyone with a pulse. Nothing in the CRA permitted lying on loan application forms. Nothing in the CRA allowed for tossing out basic underwriting principles. Most importantly: Nothing in the CRA forced large financial institutions to slap a triple-A rating on weird new financial instruments based on crap loans, which were then sold worldwide. (And nothing in the CRA stops the Obama Justice Department from prosecuting the miscreants who lied about the value of those instruments.)

Bill Clinton did the right thing, given the tenor of the times. Nevertheless, everyone blames him.

The right blames Bill for preserving the CRA.

The left blames Bill for signing Gramm-Leach-Bliley — which would have passed under any circumstances — while never crediting him for preserving CRA.

Now you know what really happened. Any strained argument which attempts to rewrite this history is nothing more than CDS-fueled casuistry.

Oh. By the way. Do you recall the name of the 1999 bill? It was called the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. The “Leach” bit refers to Congressman Jim Leach. He’s a Republican. And in 2008, he strongly supported Barack Obama

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/why_climatologists_used_the_tr.php
Local Commentary: Thoughts on ‘Climate-gate’: Mitigate our impact
By Pete Wyckoff
The planet is warming. The data are unequivocal and based on measured temperatures (corrected for things like the “heat island” effect, so please don’t write an angry response claiming that the thermometers are wrong). What Phil Jones was referring to is something else: past temperatures estimated via tree rings. Since 1960, the rings in trees seem to have lost some of their power to record temperature.
[….]
The main cause seems to be increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. While carbon dioxide is famously a gas that heats the planet (the greenhouse effect is real and uncontroversial), carbon dioxide also directly impacts plants. Carbon dioxide fuels photosynthesis, and increased carbon dioxide in the air can both speed-up plant growth and make plants less sensitive to drought. [….]
The relationship between tree rings and climate is becoming muddied by the rapid recent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. For most of the past 10,000 years, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere remained reasonably stable. Now they are skyrocketing. Modern tree rings are no longer the reliable recorders of temperature they once were. It is a good thing that we now have thermometers.
What does Phil Jones’ stolen e-mail not mean? It does not mean that global warming is a hoax. It does not mean that there are really any cracks in the scientific consensus that humans are causing dangerous alterations to the global climate.
We humans are changing the climate, largely by emitting vast quantities of carbon dioxide via the way we heat our houses, fuel our cars, and generate our electricity. This is unwise.
Dr. Pete Wyckoff is Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris.

On Wednesday morning, Organizing for America, as Obama’s reconstituted campaign organization is now known, emailed its list of 13 million Obama supporters asking them to “call your senators now and help us ‘ring in reform.’”
————————————-
The Obama campaign think their supporters are dumb as a post. Ring in reform is greeted with you sold us out to corporate interests you pig. How is that hope and change working for you.

From a comment at the phyrangula site I just posted about:
I had an epiphany while reading this thread!
AGW deniers are most common in the good ole USofA because scientists keep talking about global temperature rising by degrees Celsius. Everyone knows that the Celsius scale is a dirty, commie pinko plot to destroy the USofA. All we have to do is start talking about AGW using the Fahrenheit scale.
Fahrenheit is, of course, the scale used by freedom loving people. 🙂

wbboei, Here is Soros in Copenhaugen and what he thinks we should pony up and where we will get the money.

Copenhagen: Soros Proposes $100B Climate Fund
By Katie Fehrenbacher 0 commentsTweet This (26) Posted December 10th, 2009 at 10:07 am in PolicyCOPENHAGEN — George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist who plans to invest more than $1 billion of his own money into clean energy technology, has an idea about how to solve the financing gap between what poor nations say they urgently need to adapt to climate change, and the $10 billion per year that developing countries seem willing to pony up: get it from the International Monetary Fund.

During a press conference at the Copenhagen climate talks, Soros said that the current $10 billion proposal from the developed world is “not sufficient” and that the gap between what developing countries want and developed nations are likely to give “could actually wreck the conference.” His idea is to move $100 billion from the IMF, which is being used for financial systems that have been hit by the economic downturn, to help countries mitigate and adapt to climate change.
All week in Copenhagen the developing nations that are already being hit by the effects of climate change — many of them tiny, island nations like Tuvalu, Micronesia and the Maldives — have been calling for countries in the developed world to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions and step forward with increased contributions for helping the most vulnerable nations adapt to the effects of climate change. The UN has suggested that $10 billion per year should be put into a fund initially (with more investment needed over time), and the Obama administration has said it will contribute “its fair share” to that $10 billion per year.

Soros acknowledged that it might be difficult to get congressional approval on such an issue. President Obama plans to arrive in Copenhagen towards the end of next week when the heads of state will do the final negotiations over an agreement for countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Back in October Soros announced that he plans to invest more than $1 billion into green technologies, marking the latest move by a high profile investor who hasn’t commonly been connected to the cleantech space. The billionaire investor has already made a couple later stage investments in clean power, including clean coal company Powerspan, and cellulosic ethanol company Qteros. At that conference in October he said he would “look for profitable opportunities,” but “will also insist that the investments make a real contribution to solving the problem of climate change

Ed Schultz, an influential liberal radio host, declared on his “Ed Show” on MSNBC: “The base is restless. They are wandering in the wilderness, Mr. President. … They want to know, where are you? … Right now, Mr. President, your base thinks you’re nothing but a sellout — a corporate sellout, out that. … The only people who like this current bill right now, Mr. President, is the insurance industry — they get a bunch of new customers.”
——————————————
Ed is influential alright–from one end of the psychiatric ward to the other.

Re. the insurance companies–its not that they get new customers, its new conscripts they get on penalty of fines and jail.

And then the messiah says if we do not enact this 2.4 trillon dollar monster we will go bankrupt. This is a comedy act.

Wbboei, Here’s another on Soros, pls be sure to read the last paragraph and tell me what you think that means.

Copenhagen climate summit: George Soros urges use of IMF gold for green loans
George Soros, the billionaire investor, has suggested that the International Monetary Fund should use $100bn (£62bn) of gold reserves to back green loans from rich to poor nations.

Published: 12:14PM GMT 10 Dec 2009

George Soros lays out plans for the IMF to use its gold reserves for green loans from rich to poor nations at the Copenhagen climate summit. Photo: AP Mr Soros waded into the Copenhagen climate change talks this morning, explaining that the “not sufficient” money offered by developed nations to help out developing countries is threatening to “wreck the talks”.

He claims to have “found a way to bridge the gap” between the two sides, calling on the 192 governments at the summit to listen to his proposals.

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G20 Summit : George Soros says its success hovers on a ‘knife edge’Mr Soros believes that developed countries should hand over their “special drawing rights” – international foreign currency assets distributed by the IMF – as loans to help poorer nations tackle climate change.

Developing countries would pay interest and eventually the whole loan, but in the event of a default, the sum would be backed by the IMF’s gold reserves.

It is a different approach to the current proposals, which primarily rely on contributions from the balance sheets of developed countries.

“Developed countries’ governments are laboring under the misapprehension that funding has to come from the national budgets but that is not the case,” Mr Soros said.

“They have it already. It is lying idle in their reserves accounts and in the vaults of the IMF”.

The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has suggested a $10bn emergency fund for developing nations, rising to $100bn a year by 2020.

But China and the 137 emerging economies want up to 1pc of global GDP – or $600bn a year starting as soon as possible – causing tension at the summit.

“The $10bn fund is more than nothing but not much more because of the magnitude of the problem,” Mr Soros said, criticising Mr Brown’s proposal.

“It’s not sufficient and it’s already becoming apparent that there’s a gap between the developed and developing worlds on this issue that could actually wreck the conference.”

The billionaire investor was met with a receptive audience among non-governmental organisations, but the US is understood to be reluctant to consider such a plan because it would need Congressional approval.

“I did have some informal discussions with the US and while there’s sympathy for the plan the difficulty of getting Congressional approval has been emphasised,” he said.

He suggested the best use of the money would be to look at reducing emissions from agricultural, forestry and land use, because they offer the highest potential for cuts.

Wbboei, I read that Soros wouldn’t mind at sticking to the farmers, foresty and making them pay emmissions, afterall, Obama did not win the rural areas, Hillary did. He also wants all farming and agriculture to go to Brazile.

Over 95% of the CRU climate data set concerning land surface temperatures has been accessible to climate researchers, sceptics and the public for several years the University of East Anglia has confirmed.
[….]
The University will make all the data accessible as soon as they are released from a range of non-publication agreements. Publication will be carried out in collaboration with the Met Office Hadley Centre.

The procedure for releasing these data, which are mainly owned by National Meteorological Services (NMSs) around the globe, is by direct contact between the permanent representatives of NMSs (in the UK the Met Office).

It’s a long press release and covers several issues of ‘climategate’, and has graphs in color. 😉

Wbboei, thanks. We’ll check the email. You have good contacts so we think it will get to the right place. Hopefully, someone in the Senate will do what needs to be done. It does look as if Nelson might delay things past Christmas. We’ll know Sunday what is going to happen.

Wbboei,
In one of the rare moments since the primaries when I turn on poltical TV anymore,
I caught a few minutes of Schultz tonight.

It is truly amazing to watch the different characters in action as all this plays out. As you know, Schultz was an absolutely slobbering blowjob machine for Obama on a daily basis, one the most disgusting & deceitful perpetrators there was (which as we also know is saying something), and if anyone wants to believe it was merely coincidence he was rewarded with his own show by MSNBC directly after that, well, it’s a free country….

From what I saw he was giving it to Obama pretty good, but there is also an unsettled ownership situation @ NBC now with a looming sale to Comcast,
and how that effects their on-air political directives remains to be seen.

It is pretty wild watching everyone takes sides, but the reality is we won’t know why so-and-so acting in such a way until the dust settles, probably many moons from now.

I don’t even know what the heck Im trying to say except Fuck the integrity-less Ed Schultz and everyone who looks like him.

WASHINGTON — Ten months after the Obama administration began pressing lenders to do more to prevent foreclosures, many struggling homeowners are holding up their end of the bargain but still find themselves rejected, and some are even having their homes sold out from under them without notice.

These borrowers, rich and poor, completed trial modifications of their distressed mortgage, and made all the payments, only to learn, often indirectly, that they won’t get help after all.

How many is hard to tell. Lenders participating in the administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, still don’t provide the government with information about who’s rejected and why.

To date, more than 759,000 trial loan modifications have been started, but just 31,382 have been converted to permanent new loans. That’s averages out to 4 percent, far below the 75 percent conversion rate President Barack Obama has said he seeks.

In the fine print of the form homeowners fill out to apply for Obama’s program, which lowers monthly payments for three months while the lender decides whether to provide permanent relief, borrowers must waive important notification rights.

This clause allows banks to reject borrowers without any written notification and move straight to auctioning off their homes without any warning.

That’s what happened to Evangelina Flores, the owner of a modest 902 square-foot home in Fontana, Calif. She completed a three-month trial modification, and made the last of the agreed upon monthly payments of $1,134.60 on Nov. 1. Her lawyer said that in late November, Central Mortgage Company told her that it would void her adjustable-rate mortgage, which had risen to a monthly sum above $2,000, and replace it with a fixed-rate mortgage.

“The information they had given us is that she had qualified and that she would be getting her notice of modification in the first week of December,” said George Bosch, the legal administrator for the law firm of Edward Lopez and Rick Gaxiola, which is handling Flores’ case for free.

Flores, 58, a self-employed child care worker, wired her December payment to Central Mortgage Company on Nov. 30, thinking that her prayers had been answered. A day later, there was a loud, aggressive knock on her door.

Thinking a relative was playing a prank, she opened her front door to find two strangers handing her an eviction notice.

“They arrived real demanding, saying that they were the owners,” recalled Flores. “I have high blood pressure, and I felt awful.”

Court documents show that her house had been sold that very morning to a recently created company, Shark Investments. The men told Flores she had to be out within three days. The eviction notice had a scribbled signature, and under the signature was the name of attorney John Bouzane.

A representative in his office denied that Bouzane’s law firm was involved in Flores’ eviction, and said the eviction notice was obtained from Bouzane’s Web site, http://www.fastevictionservice.com.

Why would a lawyer provide for free a document that gives the impression that his law firm is behind an eviction?

“We hope to get the eviction business,” said the woman, who didn’t identify herself.

Flores bought her home in 2006 for $352,000. Records show that it has a current fair-market value of $99,000. The new owner bought it for $78,000 at an auction Flores didn’t even know about.

“I had my dream, but now I feel awful,” said Flores, who remains in the house while her lawyers fight her eviction. “I still can’t believe it.”

How could Flores go so quickly from getting government help to having her home owned by Shark Investment? The answer is in the fine print of standard HAMP documents.

A glance past CMC’s hopeful promise finds a different story in the fine print of HAMP document, which contains standardized language drafted by the Obama Treasury Department and is used uniformly by lenders.

The document warns that foreclosure “may be immediately resumed from the point at which it was suspended if this plan terminates, and no new notice of default, notice of intent to accelerate, notice of acceleration, or similar notice will be necessary to continue the foreclosure action, all rights to such notices being hereby waived to the extent permitted by applicable law.”

This means that even when a borrower makes all the trial payments, a lender can put the house up for auction if it decides that the homeowner doesn’t qualify — assuming that foreclosure proceedings had been started before the trial period — without telling the homeowner.

Until now, lenders haven’t even had to notify borrowers in writing that they’d been rejected for permanent modifications.

In January, 11 months after Obama’s plan was announced, homeowners will begin receiving written rejection notices, and the Treasury Department finally will begin receiving data on rejection rates and reasons for rejections.

“Foreclosure actions may not be initiated or restarted until the borrower has failed the trial period and the borrower has been considered and found ineligible for other available foreclosure prevention options,” said Meg Reilly, a Treasury spokeswoman. “Servicers who continue with foreclosure sales are considered non-compliant.”

CMC officials declined to comment and hung up when they learned that a reporter was listening in with permission from Flores’ legal team. Arvest officials also declined comment.

McClatchy did hear from Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance agency seized by the Bush administration in September 2008. Freddie owns Flores’ loan, and spokesman Brad German insisted that Flores was reviewed three times for loan modification.

“In each instance, there was a lack of documentation verifying that she had the income required for a permanent modification,” German said.

That response is ironic, said Michael Calhoun, the president of the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonpartisan group in Durham, N.C., that works on behalf of borrowers.

“These lenders gave loans with no documentation and charged them a penalty interest rate for doing so. And now when the people ask for help, they are using extravagant demands for documentation to give them the back of their hand and continue to foreclosure,” Calhoun said.

German said that Flores was sent a letter on Nov. 24, which would have arrived several days later, given the Thanksgiving holiday, informing her that she’d been rejected for a permanent modification. Flores and her attorney said she never got a letter, and neither Freddie Mac nor CMC provided proof of that letter.

Exactly one week after the letter supposedly was sent, Flores’ home was sold to Shark Investments. That company was formed on Aug. 19, according to records on the California Secretary of State’s Web site. Shark Investments, apparently an unsuspecting beneficiary of Flores’ woes, has no phone listing. The Riverside, Calif., address on the company’s filing as a limited liability company traces to a five-bedroom, four-bath house with a swimming pool.

German didn’t comment on whether Flores received sufficient notice under Freddie Mac rules, or how the home could move to sale so quickly.

“It seems servicers are giving people false hopes by sending them a plan, and they are using the program as a collection method, getting people to pay them with no intention of modifying the loan,” said Bosch. “I believe they are using this as a tool to suck people dry.”

Dashed hopes aren’t exclusive to the working poor such as Flores.

David Smith owns a beautiful home in San Clemente, Calif., the location of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. Smith purchased his five bedroom home four years ago for $1.3 million. Today, the real estate Web site Zillow.com estimates the value of Smith’s home at $981,000, slightly below the $1 million he still owes on it.

Smith said he went from “making a lot of money to making hardly any” as the national and California economies plunged into deep recession. He’s a salesman serving the hard-hit residential and commercial construction sector. On top of his hardship, Smith’s mortgage exceeds the limits for the HAMP plan.

In late August, Smith signed and returned paperwork in a prepaid FedEx envelope to Bank of America that said it had received the contract needed to modify the adjustable-rate mortgage he originally took out with the disgraced lender Countrywide Financial, which Bank of America bought last year.

The modification agreement shows that Bank of America agreed to give Smith a 3.375 percent mortgage rate through September 2014, and everything Smith paid between now and through 2019 would count as paying off interest. He’d begin paying principal and interest in October 2019, with the loan maturing in 2037.

The deal favors the lender, but Smith, 55, jumped on it because it kept him in the home.

Armed with what he thought was “a permanent modification,” Smith returned a notarized copy of the agreement and made subsequent payments on time.

In return, he got a surprising notice from Bank of America saying that his house would be auctioned off on Dec. 18.

“It looks like they’re trying to sell this out from underneath me,” Smith said. “My wife cries all the time.”

After a Dec. 16 call from McClatchy asking why Bank of America wasn’t honoring its own modification, the lender backed off.

“The case has been returned to a workout status and a Home Retention Division associate will be contacting Mr. Smith for further discussions,” said Rick Simon, a Bank of America spokesman. “The scheduled foreclosure sale will be postponed for at least 30 days to allow for review of the account in hope of completing a home retention solution for Mr. Smith.”

The Center for Responsible Lending says such problems are common.

“Everyone acknowledges that the system is not working well,” Calhoun said.

************************************************

wow, Obama really throws the country under the bus…his so-called plan to keep people from being foreclosed on and losing their homes looks more like a scam that makes ’eminent domain’ unnecessary…just squeeze a few more payments out of these poor suckers and then auction off their homes with no warning…

why isn’t this all over the news??? the O admin is doing major harm instead of help to people…this is sinister…before you know it, the O admin and banks will own all of what was formerly known as private property…

Interesting. The truth that the Obamabots cannot see is seen very clearly indeed by those on the right. Hillary would NOT have screwed up healthcare like this. From commenters on HotAir:

We should all be on our knees nightly thanking god that the Democrat who got the nod was as incompetent as Barack Obama, and not as competent as Frau Pantsuit. If she had won, I suspect this would already be law.

JohnGalt23 on December 17, 2009 at 7:10 PM

Oh, agreed. Had we been dealing with Hillary or a Lyndon Johnson, this would have been a done deal a long time ago. It’s only because we have the three stooges combo of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama that this atrocity hasn’t been perpetrated on the American people yet.

Matt Helm on December 17, 2009 at 8:56 PM

Agreed! The ONLY thing that has delayed that disaster is mass incompetence on the part of the Democrats!

Not Your Sweetie has a screen clip of Golf Digest’s January 2010 cover here: http://edgeoforever.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/tabloids-do-the-bestest-speech-on-war. It is a picture of Tiger and BO, and touts an article entitled “10 TIPS Obama Can Take From Tiger”. Whether the magazine would ever see the light of day was in question. However, last week I found a copy in a waiting room. I really wanted to steal the Digest, but confined myself to taking notes and putting it back. Regrettably I did not notice who authored the “Ten Tips” article. However, these are the severely abbreviated tips: 1. Refocus quickly after disaster. 2. Convey a cold ferocity to those who have annoyed you. 3. Hone your ability to assess when adversary is at weakest point; then come in for figurative kill. 4. Although compromise is necessary, never compromise your core values. 5. Win a big victory such as health care in order to increase your power to intimidate. 6. Control the message and control spending. 7. Don’t hunker down and simply rely on the vision and skills that got you elected. 8. Quit dressing inappropriately (particularly on golf course). 9. You’ve got to deliver; it’s not good enough to have glory thrust upon you by simply holding a position. 10. Avoid looking ridiculous in public. (In your case, keep golfing to yourself.)
Seems to me POTUS has been making overtures to appear more macho, and also more affectionate to FLOTUS since buddy Tiger went down.

Hillary is in Copenhagen for the climate issue and is attracting large crowds.This brave smart and patriotic woman gives this country and the world ,her best

while The BOGUS POTUS tries to claim credit for all of her solutions for world problems.She is a crowd favorite no matter where she travels.

———————————————————————

For those of us who work for the State Department, today was particularly exiting because our boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in the wee hours of the morning. She landed in a cold and snowy Denmark and has had a pretty full schedule since then. She has been meeting with her counterparts, other foreign ministers, and she gave a press conference to a packed house. The Secretary said that it is an undeniable and unforgiving fact that climate change threatens our security and our economy as well as the environment. She acknowledged that the talks have been difficult and she urged the parties to the conference to reach to find common ground and take an historic step. Toward that end she announced that the United States was prepared to work together with other countries to jointly mobilize 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 to help developing countries address the effects of climate change. As I was walking out of the press conference, I overheard a journalist phoning in the headline ‘U.S. attempts to rescue climate negotiations from the brink of failure.’

We’re so often portrayed as the villain, it was really heartening to hear someone perceiving our actions as positive. It is no secret that the secretary is a rock-star around the world, and so pictures from the press conference immediately showed up on the front pages of websites and other media outlets. Tomorrow President Obama addresses the conference in what I’ve been told will be the most watched session ever. And tomorrow is also the last day of the conference, so check in with me one more time as I tell you about reactions to the President’s presentation and to the final outcome of the conference.”

She is covered evertwhere but here.Our media conspiricy led by SOROS
see to that

Our Golden girl submitted the deal of the century to the Climate Change moguls smacking their lips at the lucrative Cap and Trade deals to come.

The latest NBC news a few minutes ago said, China is blocking the Global Warming agreement. Obama’s last minute appearance means nothing to the heads of state ready to leave for their respective countries after China refused to be subjected to the “transparency” requirement in the agreement.

Funny isn’t it? Almost every country is being subjected to record COLD. The UK is experiencing record snowfalls and bitter cold. The current US weather reports are projecting a Nor’Easter spanning from the midsection of the US swinging all the way around to MA projecting heavy snowfall warnings in VA.

I’m sure in the end this will all get straightened out when over 700 scientists (link below) take on the data of the 53 scientists who came to the conclusion the Climate is warming due to humans rather than the consensus of the 700 scientists who are claiming the Climate is actually cooling irrespective of the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Fraud lurks everywhere, especially when there are beaucoup bucks at stake to be made or lost by the movers and shakers.

Great article you posted on Soros. He must be pulling his hair out by the roots because things aren’t going his way at the Copenhagen summit… The picture of him at the linked story has him looking a bit peekid.

“George Soros says its success hovers on a ‘knife edge’ Mr Soros believes that developed countries should hand over their “special drawing rights” – international foreign currency assets distributed by the IMF – as loans to help poorer nations tackle climate change.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Really, we should turn over whatever (credit) wealth is left for the US to aid Mr Soros making billions risking all on the backs of the American taxpayer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

““The $10bn fund is more than nothing but not much more because of the magnitude of the problem,” Mr Soros said, criticising Mr Brown’s proposal. Soros said: “It’s not sufficient and it’s already becoming apparent that there’s a gap between the developed and developing worlds on this issue that could actually wreck the conference.”

“The billionaire investor was met with a receptive audience among non-governmental organisations, but the US is understood to be reluctant to consider such a plan because it would need Congressional approval.

“I did have some informal discussions with the US and while there’s sympathy for the plan the difficulty of getting Congressional approval has been emphasised,” he said.

He suggested the best use of the money would be to look at reducing emissions from agricultural, forestry and land use, because they offer the highest potential for cuts.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obviously Mr Soros doesn’t think much of the democratic process of congressional approvals needed. A shame we have to live with the checks and balances in place unique to our system of overseeing money spent in the name of the American people.(not to say money isn’t hijacked in spite of our system)

Yup, hit the people (farmers and loggers) who can least afford to pay a Carbon Tax on CO2 emmissions that we are NOT responsible for I wonder how much $$$ (grants) Soros offered the scientists that fudged the numbers to come to conclusions in line with the scheme Soros has devised?

All those seeds are being reaped in Copenhagen, No-one is paying attention to Obama, he has weakened the office of the President, cheapened it, into a celebrity lucky dip bag given to petulent kids who scream at parties.

Whenever I see Bambi striking the ‘nose in the air’ pose, I think to myself how delusional must this man be… Does he actually believe he has everyone fooled that he is the president of the US and not the puppet of Soros we happen to know he is.

Obama is nothing more than an order taker, a frontman , waiting to be directed by George Soros’s or ZBig for his next order bound to fail.

I thought this article interesting and worth posting. If nothing else seeing Global Warming/Cooling from another vantage point may explain the weather we are experiencing contrary to the Climate Summit’s explanation.

Disappearing sunspots may signal end to global warming

Oh, where, oh where have all the sunspots gone?

The fiery orange ball overhead has quieted during the past three years. Quiet in the sense that there have been very few sunspots – those black blotches on the sun’s surface caused by intense magnetic activity.

But just how quiet is quiet? Well, so far during the recent solar minimum (a period of low activity during the sun’s typical 11-year solar cycle), we’ve seen 183 sun-spotless days in 2007, 266 in 2008 and 259 in 2009 (as of Dec. 16 2009). Earth hasn’t witnessed a similar three-year stretch (1911, 192, 1913) of sun-spotless days since the early 1900s.

The blank sun has not gone unnoticed by the experts. “We’re experiencing a very deep solar minimum,” says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

“This is the quietest sun we’ve seen in almost a century,” agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

So why are sunspots under the spotlight? Because, according to solar scientists, their declining numbers, significant even by solar-minimum standards, could be the harbinger of colder temperatures ahead.

If so, it won’t be the first time the earth shivered as sunspots numbers declined. In the 17th century, the sun experienced a sunspot drought, dubbed the Maunder Minimum, which lasted 70 years – from 1645 until 1715. Astronomers at the time counted only a few dozen sunspots per year, thousands fewer than usual.

As sunspots vanished temperatures fell. The River Thames in London froze, sea ice was reported along the coasts of southeast England, and ice floes blocked many harbors. Agricultural production nose-dived as growing seasons grew shorter, leading to lower crop yields, food shortages and famine.

Canadian author and National Post environmental columnist Lawrence Solomon describes the period:

“Glaciers advanced rapidly in Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia and North America, making vast tracts of land uninhabitable. The Arctic pack ice extended so far south that several reports describe Eskimos landing their kayaks in Scotland. Finland’s population fell by one-third, Iceland’s by half, the Viking colonies in Greenland [yes, it was once green, with forests and pastureland] were abandoned altogether, as were many Inuit communities. The cold in North America spread so far south that, in the winter of 1780, New York Harbor froze, enabling people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island.”

Is mankind headed for another cool-down or big freeze? Based on recent scientific findings, it might be a possibility. A Danish research team led by Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen, has discovered a strong correlation between sunspot activity, galactic cosmic rays and variations in the earth’s climate, a theory (supported by experiments) that challenges the prevailing concept of human-induced climate change, popularly known as anthropogenic global warming.

Henrik and his team have discovered that increased solar activity in the form of sunspots, flares and other disturbances generate solar winds that strengthen the magnetic fields surrounding earth, creating a bubble that suppresses cosmic ray penetration, inhibiting cloud formation and causing warming.

Conversely, when solar activity diminishes, the protective magnetic bubble weakens and more cosmic rays penetrate the earth’s atmosphere. The high-energy particles serve as host nuclei around which water vapor can condense and form droplets, resulting in more cloud cover and precipitation. Temperatures begin to fall as the clouds reflect more sunlight back into space.

“Galactic cosmic rays carry with them radiation from other parts of our galaxy,” says Ed Smith, NASA’s Ulysses project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “With the solar wind at an all-time low, there is an excellent chance the heliosphere [earth’s protective bubble] will diminish in size and strength. If that occurs, more galactic cosmic rays will make it into the inner part of our solar system.”

If Svensmark and other climate scientists are correct, the decline in solar activity may be responsible for the recent fall in global temperatures. In 1998, global temperatures at the earth’s surface began leveling off and have actually declined slightly since 2001, despite an increase in CO2 levels, calling into question the accuracy of climate models that predict catastrophic global warming.

The decade-long cool-down is clearly visible in satellite temperature measurements, which are widely viewed as more accurate than land-based temperatures readings, according to Dr. David Evans, who was a researcher with the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1995 to 2005. Such readings, he says, are often skewed by what is called the “urban heat island” effect, which articially elevates temperatures.

“NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling,” says Evans. “The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling.”

Senior White House Official: The ‘Chinese Are Dug In’; ‘We’ve Done What We Can’ in Copenhagen

Translation : Obama failed again, It’s over.

“We’ve done what we can here,” a senior White House official in Copenhagen, Denmark, tells ABC News. “The Chinese are dug in on transparency and are refusing to let people know they’re living up to their end of the agreement.”

After landing in Denmark early this morning, President Obama met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during a bilateral at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen to press the case that China needs to allow for transparency.

“The President’s priority is to make our economy far more focused on a clean energy economy that creates jobs,” the official said. “He is here to work constructively and participate in hoping to get an international accord. But not getting one here won’t change wanting to transform our economy to create the new foundation he’s talked about.”

she got it so far, it look like a deal was imminent, got his ego all wee wee’d up so he would swoop in on his one man showcase finale to finish up, then sat and watched him screw it up and it all fell to crap, predictably when he started preaching at the chinese, she’s probably thinking “what a dick” about now.

A visibly angry Barack Obama threw down the gauntlet at China and other developing nations Friday, declaring that the time has come “not to talk but to act” on climate change.
Emerging from a multinational meeting boycotted by Chinese Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Obama warned delegates that U.S. offers of funding for poor nations would remain on the table “if and only if” developing nations, including China, agreed to international monitoring of their greenhouse gas emissions.

Oooo, pissy, pissy, PISSY! The Anointed One is showing his true nature. He has ever and always gotten pissy when people didn’t fall down and heap accolades upon him just for existing in all his magnificence.

A 4-year-old boy, beer in hand, is accused of stealing Christmas presents from his neighbors. It’s a strange story, but also a sad one.

April Wright is 21 years old and is going through a divorce with her husband who is in jail. She says she is not sure how her 4-year-old managed to get out of the house, open a beer, and steal the neighbors presents from under their tree. Now she’s just glad he’s okay and says she won’t let it happen again.

The child, Hayden Wright, was found around 1:45 am Tuesday, wandering the streets of his neighborhood. In a police reports, officers said he was wearing a little girl’s dress and drinking a beer. The police report says the child had to be taken to the hospital to be treated for alcohol consumption. [snip]

Once out, Wright says her four year old followed his father’s footsteps and was found on Blue Spruce Road, drinking.

“He runs away trying to find his father,” she said. “He wants to get in trouble so he can go to jail because that’s where his daddy is.” [snip]

The report said Hayden then snuck into a neighbor’s house through an unlocked front door, and stole five wrapped Christmas gifts. One was a girl’s brown dress which Hayden was wearing when police found him.

“Going to the neighbor’s house and taking their presents, very embarrassing,” said April.

Mrs. Smith, that was an interesting article, but if the earth is cooling, how does one explain the shrinking artic ice caps?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As an example, if the cooling, as reported by solar scientists is happening; the cooling temperatures have not been reflected in the actual sea water temperature that lie beneath the arctic ice as of yet.

Reporters and journalists are on Facebook giving a blow by blow account of what is going on to the minute.

The latest happening:

There’s no deadline in draft climate agreement

That new draft agreement being considered by world leaders in Copenhagen is dropping a 2010 deadline for a legally binding treaty to fight global warming, The Associated Press reports after it was able to obtain a copy.

I hope someone has the presence of mind to photograph the look on Soros’s face when it’s over.

moon, exactly. Obama has never been able to handle pressure. He cracks, and loses his composure. He could have easily been finished off by Hill in the primary, if the DNC and the media hadn’t carried him around protectively on a pillowed litter, and viciously kneecapped and silenced anyone who dared to say his poo did indeed stink like anyone else’s.

basil9, LOL!! She knew he was getting his ass kicked yesterday. She also knows the little SOB can’t negotiate anything because he sticks his nose high in the air and pisses everybody off. The world is on to his ass and he can’t do anything, the shine is off, the mask is off, everyone knows his a little gangsta from Chi-town. ROTFLMAO!!!

Well, “liberal to the point of socialist” Bernie Sanders just said he’ll support this crap bill, even though he openly admitted that Big Pharma and Insurance would be rejoicing over it.

His reasoning? He “doesn’t want the media to be able to say that Obama accomplished nothing”.

It’s all about Obama, never about US. I HATE THESE DIMOCRATS. I truly do. I doubt I’ll ever vote for a Dem ever again. I may just vote for the looniest far right loon I can find in the next few elections, just to blow off steam and crush these lying bastards.

wbboei, I like to think our little espose’ on the big SOB Soros helped knock him down a peg or two. I would like to see his face his face also as he realized he not the biggest enchilada on the planet and the people have figured him out too.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he “still” smelled sulfur after President Obama made a keynote speech at the Copenhagen climate conference Friday, accusing the American president of carrying same satanic Chavez believes followed Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush.

Chavez, who was not included on the original list of speakers for the final day of the summit, ended the proceedings with bitter references to the Peace Prize-winning Obama as the “Nobel Prize of War.”

“The Nobel Prize of War just finished saying here that he is here to act. Well, show it sir. Don’t leave by the back door,” he said.

Three years after Chavez likened Bush to the devil during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the socialist strongman tore into Obama, claiming Friday that “it still smells like sulfur in the world.”

Assembled world leaders cheered on Chavez Wednesday during his first, scheduled speech, a ringing attack on all things capitalist that earned him standing ovations from leaders of the Third World.

So with Hillary stating that the United States would contribute to a climate change fund amounting to US$100 billion a year by 2020, I’m wondering one thing.

Where exactly is this money supposed to come from?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I believe that deal is dead, Jan. Because they are still negotiating numbers and posturing guidelines for a new accord. Where was the money to come from? Thats the million dollar question although Hillary did make a substantial reduction in the amount the US would be responsible to commit. And seeing a deal can’t be struck with the participating nations, the answer, I believe is moot.

H4T@ 5:15, LOL!! Its the truth, it would have already been law and it would have included all 47million uninsured. Its sad, but it very well could have been the conspiracy by big pharma and rest to keep Hillary out of the pic. He certainly did get alot of help by the rethugs to get elected. They also know he is very incompetent. They certainly wanted Hillary in as Sec of State. They did not leave that unprotected.

How fucking humiliating a level is he going to go to. He’s setting a whole new standard.

Obama to meet ‘offended’ Chinese premier in Copenhagen

From Sam Coates, Chief Political Correspondent) UK diplomatic sources confirmed there had been a major setback after China took huge offence at remarks by President Obama over the need to independently monitor every country carbon emissions.

In his speech President Obama said: “Without any accountability, any agreement would be empty words on a page” – remarks the Chinese interpreted as an attempt to humiliate them, prompting Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to return to his hotel.

President Obama will now hold a second round of talks with Mr Wen in an attempt to patch up the disagreement.

MoP, That man is an idiot. I thought the left thought he was so gifted and knew all about how not to offend, yet his has offended everyone from day one. So now we are giving away everything. I thought it was over?? I guess he is still there and I bet Soros is too.

A visibly angry Barack Obama threw down the gauntlet at China and other developing nations Friday, declaring that the time has come “not to talk but to act” on climate change.
Emerging from a multinational meeting boycotted by Chinese Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Obama warned delegates that U.S. offers of funding for poor nations would remain on the table “if and only if” developing nations, including China, agreed to international monitoring of their greenhouse gas emissions.

Oooo, pissy, pissy, PISSY! The Anointed One is showing his true nature. He has ever and always gotten pissy when people didn’t fall down and heap accolades upon him just for existing in all his magnificence.
——————————————————–
That is the problem. Most of the time, he puts on this hail fellow well met facade. Once in a while you get the Vesuvian Eruption. Like here. Like now. Like at the worst possible time. The Man must be kept away from the bargaining table. Even when he is scripted it is a disaster. The goddam America preaching tone comes to the forefront and is deeply offensive, particularly to the Chinese who will not tolerate a loss of face.

I guess all that foreign policy experience big media credited him with–like living in a Kenyan Village and being a Muslim in Indonesia, never quite prepared him for this. I guess big media was also right about the relative unimportance of Hillary’s many meetings with world leaders as First Lady over a decade–just tea parties according to scumbag Craig and trumpeted by big media. This entire debacle and the thousand misfortunes Obama will bring to this country is the fault of big media. They are the proximate cause/

The president’s speech followed the publication of draft text, obtained by the Guardian this morning, that reveals the enormous progress needed from world leaders in the final hours of the Copenhagen climate change summit to achieve a strong deal. The draft says countries “ought” to limit global warming to 2C, but crucially does not bind them to do so. The text, drafted by a select group of 28 leaders – including UK prime minister, Gordon Brown – in the early hours of this morning, also proposes extending negotiations for another year until the next scheduled UN meeting on climate change in Mexico City in December 2010.

In his address, Obama did say America would follow through on his administration’s clean energy agenda, and that it would live up to its pledges to the international community.

“We have charted our course, we have made our commitments, and we will do what we say,” Obama said.

But in the absence of any evidence of that commitment the words rang hollow and there was a palpable sense of disappointment in the audience.

Instead, he warned African states and low island nations who have been resisting what they see as a weak agreement that the later alternative — no agreement — was far worse.

“We know the fault lines because we’ve been imprisoned by them for years. But here is the bottom line: we can embrace this accord, take a substantial step forward, and continue to refine it and build upon its foundation,” he said.

“Or we can again choose delay, falling back into the same divisions that have stood in the way of action for years. And we will be back having the same stale arguments month after month, year after year – all while the danger of climate change grows until it is irreversible.”

He also took a dig at China, drawing attention to its status as the world’s biggest emitter and reinforcing America’s hardline on the issue of accountability for greenhouse gas emissions.

The lacklustre speech proved a huge frustration to a summit that had been looking to Obama to use his stature on the world stage – and his special following among African leaders – to try to come to an ambitious deal.

The president was drawn into the chaos within minutes of his arrival at Copenhagen, ditching his schedule to take part in a meeting of major industrialised and rapidly emerging economies.

Responding to Obama’s speech, a British official said: “Gordon Brown is committed to doing all he can and will stay until the very last minute to secure a deal… but others also need to show the same level of commitment. The prospects of a deal are not great.”

Many reactions were strongly critical of Obama. Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, described Obama’s speech as “ridiculous” and the US’s initial offer of a $10bn fund for poor countries in the draft text as “a joke”.

Well, “liberal to the point of socialist” Bernie Sanders just said he’ll support this crap bill, even though he openly admitted that Big Pharma and Insurance would be rejoicing over it.

His reasoning? He “doesn’t want the media to be able to say that Obama accomplished nothing”.

It’s all about Obama, never about US. I HATE THESE DIMOCRATS. I truly do. I doubt I’ll ever vote for a Dem ever again. I may just vote for the looniest far right loon I can find in the next few elections, just to blow off steam and crush these lying bastards.
———————————-
He is an independent–which means there are no direct party stings to bind him. He poses as a populist–which means he sides with the people rather than big business. Yet he signs a bill which supports big business at the expense of his people. He would rather see his constituents fail, than see Obama fail in his attempt to enact bad legislation. This man Sanders is either a liar, or a coward. There is no other rational explanation for this behavior.

Supposed to be today but they will drag the ass out of it until they walk away with something. Its a clusterfuck of a conference that has been shoddily put together by certain people to grandstand, Obama being one, Brown being another, both of whom are in trouble electorally and need a foreign policy boost.

Cheer up Bambi–we have only just begun
—————————————–
There’s no people like show people
They smile when they are low
Even with a TURKEY LIKE YOU that we know will fold
You may be stranded out in the cold
Still you wouldn’t trade it for GEORGE SOROS’ gold
Let’s go on with the show
YOU PHONY

Can anyone else explain to me, why the hell everything this year is being held in Copenhagen, isnt there anywhere else, the world can go, Copenhagen must be shitbored with Obama dropping in to fuck the country up.

Mrs. Smith, He wants to use the gold that is sitting in the vaults doing nothing. Just keeping America solvent that all. So are the Chinese scared of Obama?? Yeah, scared he’s crazy enough to let a Hitlerite like Soros/Zbig tell him what to do.

You may be right. Soros owns all the heavy hitters in Congress. But then he would have Hillary to deal with smacking his hands if she caught him dipping into the cookie jar.
——————————————————
Soros has zero support on the Republican side. Zero, I assure you. They have their own moneymen, but Soros is definitely not one of them. Nor does he run the entire democratic party. Only the left wing of the party which has control of the party and government now.

wbboei, You sound almost sure the rethugs are getting back in?? Not according to the polls that Fox is putting up. The tea party people still want a democrat not a rethug. My point is I think the people want Hillary. Fox somehow have polled the tea party movement, they want a democrat, how they did this is beyond me, but your average Joe has forgotten what the rethugs have done.

What has happened is that people have realized that the rethugs spend just as much if not more on pork barrel projects as the dimocrats. People NOW don’t trust what the media is telling them and are researching who is doing what. The billion that was voted on had more rethug pork than dim pork.

WASHINGTON, DC— Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit was joined by 22 of his House colleagues today in introducing new legislation that assess a miniscule tax on Wall Street securities transactions. The money it generates will be used to rebuild Main Street. The legislation, H.R. 4191 Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act, has powerful support from the economists, Wall Street investors, labor organizations, and consumer groups.

“Our nation continues to be crippled by a struggling economy which has resulted in an astronomical unemployment rate of 10.2%. The American taxpayers bailed out Wall Street during a crisis brought on by reckless speculation in the financial markets. This legislation will force Wall Street to do their part and put people displaced by that crisis back to work,” DeFazio said.

“I voted against the absurd bank bailout and the Bush Administration’s cowboy capitalism, markets know best, deregulation at all cost policies. Our stunning unemployment rate is clearly a result of the failure of those policies. We cannot wait for the next bubble to pull us out of the recession. We must invest in our future, our infrastructure, and our middle class now. This legislation will ensure Wall Street pay for needed investment to get our country back on track,” DeFazio continued

Harkin intends to introduce similar legislation in the Senate next week.

“It is time to raise revenues, pay the bills and create jobs in America, and the most painless way to do this is by imposing a modest tax on financial transactions,” Senator Harkin said. “There is no question that Wall Street can easily bear this tax. Last year, the U.S. taxpayer bailed out Goldman Sachs to the tune of $10 billion. This year, Goldman Sachs has set aside nearly $17 billion for bonuses. We need a shift in priorities in this country to ask not what America can do for Wall Street, but ask what Wall Street can do for America.”

The legislation assesses a small securities transaction tax on Wall Street. A securities transaction tax is applied to:

•Stock transactions (tax rate will be 1/4 of 1 percent–0.25%),
•Futures contracts to buy or sell a specified commodity of standardized quality at a certain date in the future, at a market determined price (tax rate will be 0.02%)
•Swaps between two firms on certain benefits of one party’s financial instrument for those of the other party’s financial instrument (tax rate will be 0.02%)
• Credit default swaps where a contract is swapped through a series of payments in exchange for a payoff if a credit instrument (typically a bond or loan) goes into default (fails to pay) (tax rate will be 0.02%)
•And options, which are contracts between a buyer and a seller that gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy or to sell a particular asset on or before the option’s expiration time, at an agreed price (at the rate of the underlying asset)

A transaction tax has the support of over 200 economists, including Paul Krugman, business leaders like John Bogle, the founder of Vangard, and labor and consumer organizations such as AFL-CIO and Americans for Financial Reform. It will provide a disincentive for excessive speculation. Much of the excessive risk on Wall Street is in the form of high-volume short-term speculative trading. The tax could raise approximately $150 billion a year.

To ensure the tax is appropriately targeted to speculators and has no impact on the average investor and pension funds, the tax will be refunded for:

•tax-favored retirement accounts
•mutual funds
•education savings accounts
•health savings accounts
•the first $100,000 of transactions annually that are not already exempted
Half the revenue generated by this transaction tax (approximately $75 billion) would be deposited in a Job Creation Reserve to fund the creation of good paying jobs and put Americans back to work rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure. Each $1 billion of Federal infrastructure investment creates or sustains over 34,000 American jobs and $6.2 billion in economic activity. The Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009, which would will create or sustain over 12.5 million family wage jobs, would be partially funded through this tax.

The second half of the revenue generated by this transaction tax (approximately $75 billion) would be used to directly reduce the deficit.

Hillary’s HC plan (as described in an early 2008 debate with Edwards and Obama) included mandates but also subsidies and a variety of public options, including the same one that members of Congress have, or very similar (and Medicare iirc). She said when someone appeared at a hospital ER with no coverage the hospital staff would enroll him in the plan that was best for him. No fines or IRS searching out the holdouts!

ALso anyone who liked their own current plan could keep it; Obamacare seems to interfere with that also.

With all these selling points I think Hillary 2009 could have got better public support than Obamacare has.

From Sam Coates, Chief Political Correspondent) UK diplomatic sources confirmed there had been a major setback after China took huge offence at remarks by President Obama over the need to independently monitor every country carbon emissions.

In his speech President Obama said: “Without any accountability, any agreement would be empty words on a page” – remarks the Chinese interpreted as an attempt to humiliate them, prompting Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to return to his hotel.

confloyd
December 18th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
according to the polls that Fox is putting up. The tea party people still want a democrat not a rethug. My point is I think the people want Hillary. Fox somehow have polled the tea party movement, they want a democrat, how they did this is beyond me,

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Now that is very interesting and surprising! Where can we find more detial? Links?

Most of the Tea Party quotes I’ve seen seem to be about rightwing positions.